11/11/2014

APES 3: More From Director Matt Reeves

While promoting the Blu-ray release of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, director Matt Reeves dropped a few more clues about the coming third chapter in the new cycle of films. "We want the story to be able to connect from the human to the ape world," he says. "So first one, [Rise of the Planet of the Apes] is this sort of how [Caesar] goes from humble beginnings to becoming a revolutionary. In Dawn, he rose to the occasion of becoming a leader, a great leader in really challenging difficult times. The notion of what we’re after in the third is continue that trajectory to how he becomes the seminal figure in ape history and almost becomes sort of like an ape Moses of sorts, a kind of mythic ascension. We’re trying to play out those themes and try to explore it in this universe of exploring human nature under the guise of apes. We are outlining the story right now, and it’s pretty exciting. I’m pretty excited about it. Somebody called this the ‘Caesar cycle’ of these films and I loved that. I thought, ‘That’s exactly right.’ He is this unique character in that he sort of was raised as human but he’s an ape, and he wasn’t part of either. This situation [at the end of Dawn] is exactly what he was trying to avoid. The oncoming war is what Dawn was all about avoiding and it wasn’t avoided, so what does that mean to him as a character and how will he lead his people through this—or his apes through this?" One other tidbit: he says the film could have one less word in its title. Considering the first film was Rise and the second was Dawn, what are the odds of Reeves just going with Planet of the Apes?